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Oklahoma House Addresses Speed Traps

The Oklahoma House last week overwhelmingly approved a bill designed to cut down on the state’s speed traps.

The bill, which now goes to the state Senate, voids speed limits in areas where no traffic study has been conducted to set speeds that will smooth traffic flow – not just raise revenue for local government.Rep. M.C. Leist said that the number of tickets written by small police departments along Oklahoma 69 near the Texas border is way out of line. In the last 35 months, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has written 2,147 tickets along the highway. In comparison, the town of Tushka, population 255, wrote 3,259 tickets. The tiny town has four officers and four patrol cars.Ron Marley, police chief of Stringtown, another town mentioned by Leist, admitted writing a lot of speeding citations – but said police officers allow an average tolerance of 12-15 mph over the town’s 60-mph speed limit. “We get some running 95,” he said. “When they go picking up the bodies, they’ll want us back out there.”